Martinsburg daily gazette. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1887-1887, 1887-05-03
Continued from last Issue.
DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
ELOQUENT DISCOURSE CONCERNING
GOOD AND BAD LITERATURE.

ought to be busy, staring by che half
hour at nothing, biting her finger nails
Into the quick The carpet. that was plain
before, win be palmer after having wandered
through q romance all night long in tessel-
ated halls Of castles. And your Industrious
companion win be more unattractive than
ever now that you have walked in the ro-
nance through parks with plumed princesses
or lounged in the arbor with the polished des-
perado. Oh, these confirmed novel readersl
They are untitled for this life, which is a
tremendous discipline. They know not how
to 60 through the furnaces Of trial through
which they must pass, and they are untitled
for world where everything we gain we
achieve by hard, long continuing and ex-
haustive work.
Again: Abstain from all those books
which, while they have some good things
about them. have also an admixture Of evil.
You have read books that had two elements
in them-the good and the bad. Which stuck
to you9 The bad! The heart of most people
Is like sieve, which lets the small particles
of gold fall through, but keeps the great
cinders Ones in while there is mind like
o loadstone, which, plunged amid steel and
DktlkS AAtIBS, EnbuO1o np oAtC oocGA t%AkA AVkSAS
the brass. But it is generally just the oppo1
site. II you attempt to plunge through
hedge Of burrs to get one blackberry, you
will get more burrs than blackberries. You
cannot afford to read bad book, how
ever good you are You say: "The influence
Is Insignificant" / tell You that the scratch
Of pin has sometimes produced the lockjaw.
Alas, il through curiosity, as many do, You
pry into an evil hook, your curiosity is as
dangerous as that of the man who would take
q torch into a gunpowder mill merely to see
whether it would really blow up or not. In
q menagerie in New York man put his arm
through the bars Of black leopard's cage.
The animals hide looked SO sleek, and bright,
and beautiful He just stroked it once. The
monster seized him, and he drew forth hand
torn, and mangled, and bleeding. Oh, touch
not evil, even with the faintest strokel
Though it may be glossy and beautiful, touch
it not, lest you pull forth your soul torn and
bleeding under the clutch of the black
leopard. But" you say, show can find
out whether book is good or bad without
reading itF There is always something sus-
picious about bad book. never knew an
exception something suspicious in the index
Or style OF illustration This venomous rep
tile almost always carries warning rattle.
Again: charge you to stand off from all
those books which corrupt the imagination
and infiame the passions do not refer now
to that kind of book which the villain has
under his coat waiting for the school to get
out and then, looking both ways to see that
there is no policeman around the block,
offers the book to your son on his way home.
/ do not speak of that kind of literature. but
that which evades the law and comes out in
polished style, and with acute plot sounds the
tocsin that rouses up all the baser passions Of
the soul Today, under the nostrils Of this
land, there is fetid, reeking, unwashed litera-
/ ture enough to poison all the fountains Of
public virtue and slnite your sons and daugh-
ters as with the wing of destroying angel,
and it is time that the ministers Of the Gospel
blew the trumpet and rallied the forces of
| Righteousness. all armed to the teeth, in this
great battle against depraved literature
/ Again, abstain from those books which are
| apologetic of crime. It Is sad thing that
some of the best and most beautiful book
/ bindery. and some Of the finest rhetoric, have
| been brought to make sin attractive. Vice Is
/ horrible thing, anyhow. Il IS born in
shame and it dies bowling in the darkness,
| In this world IL Is scourged with whip Of
scorpions, but afterward the thunders Of
Gods wrath pursue It across boundless
desert, beating it with ruin and woe. When
you come to paint carnality, do not paint it
! Is looking from behind embroidered curtains
Or through lattice OF royal seraglio, but q
writing in the agonies Of city hospital
Cursed be the books that try to make inn
purity decent and crime attractive and
hypocrisy noble. Cursed be the books that
/ swarm with libertinea and desperadoes, who
(CostinEed Os last pGge.l